Page 40 - Baltimore Fish Bowl - Home Guide

A GIANT FLIP:
The Most Expensive NHouse in Hampden
ew renovation of a three-story Hampden rowhouse, circa 1900, brick with composite
roof, on Wyman Park. Three bedrooms, three and a half baths, over 1,746 square feet, with front porch and walkout back deck. Large master suite with closet room and luxury en suite bath. Upstairs sitting room and laundry. Custom French barn door in the kitchen leads to covered rear parking pad: $399,000
What: A house flip in Hampden that is so on-trend it’s almost laughable. Black-paint- ed doors and window trim, check. All-
Update: Belmore Properties bought this house for $120,000 in August 2015. By November 2016, it was on the market at $400,000, and just two months later, in January 2017, it sold for $385,000. Well done, Belmore!
white interiors, check. Distressed-looking “industrial” flooring, check. This house got everything right, which is presumably why they are asking an eyebrow-raising price for a Hampden rowhouse. That said, it looks great, and Pete Belden at Belmore Prop- erties LLC is just hopping — a little more aggressively than most — on the bandwag- on. Last year, Realty Trac listed Baltimore’s 21211 zip code (median age, 36) as Amer- ica’s ninth best place to flip a house, with an average of 120 percent return on invest- ment. In this case, the aesthetic is “high- end shelter magazine,” and if the materials are not absolutely top-of-the-line, they give a good impression of it. From the lighting to the hardware, this house has all the trappings of a profitable city flip. A lot of eager investors will be watching to see what it does.
Where: Keswick Road, south of the Avenue, at the corner of 33rd Street — a fairly busy intersection, with a 7-11 on the far side, on the western edge of Wyman Park. There are three art galler- ies within 100 yards, and next door is the Little Shop Of Hardware, a reassuringly authentic computer-repair store. Behind the house, you can follow the newly chic artery of Chestnut Avenue past groovy restaurants, upscale tattoo parlors, pasta emporiums, and cool design stores into the beating heart of Hampden.
Why: Someday soon, when Hampden is completely gentrified, people won’t believe you got this place for $400,000.
Why Not: Too stubborn to buy someone else’s flip. Rather do it yourself.
NB: Parking pad backs onto a very narrow alley and is almost impossible to use. You’ll be parking on 33rd Street.
38 baltimorefishbowl.com